“Did You Know” Christmas Edition – December 6

In 1939, Montgomery Ward, at that time, gave away promotional colouring books to try to get shoppers for the holiday season. In 1939, in order to save on the price of the books, they decided to try to make their own. They had Robert L. May who was a copywriter for Montgomery Ward in Chicago, write them a short Christmas story to be used for this promotional colouring book. May was very small as a child and was often picked on, so decided to make it an Ugly Duckling type tale, which he wrote in the same verse as ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”. It was then illustrated by Denver Gillen, who working in Montgomery Ward’s art department and was a friend of Mays.